Monday, December 31, 2007

Well, Apple readers, I'm back from my trip home. It was filled with much, much sleeping -- all of it very necessary -- as well as other good things like sandwiches, dog walks in the snow, board and card games with my parents, and finally, football on TV. I encountered some topics during my vacation that I plan to investigate here in these (web) pages. But I'm going to hold off on those because I thought it would be more appropriate to do an Apple on something New Year's Eve-related instead.

CharacteristicsAnimal representative of Albus Dumbledore. Tears have healing properties, as does its song.

AppearanceSize of a swan, crimson feathers, long (very strong) tail.Claws, beak, and tail are golden.Death & ResurrectionCan appear and disappear at will, but also dies in a burst of flame to be re-born almost immediately in its ashes.

AppearanceVery similar to the Chinese Feng HuangDeath & ResurrectionDescends from heaven at the birth of a virtuous ruler and nests in a paulownia tree. Goes back to heaven at the close of peaceful and prosperous times.

AppearanceHead, wings, talons, beak of an eagle; body and limbs of a man.White face, red wings, brilliantly shining body.Death & ResurrectionFought the gods to get the draft of immortality and rescued his mother from the underworld where she was guarded by snakes.Carries immortality still.

In nearly all of these stories, as you can see, the phoenix is a force of good. Sometimes its appearance only signals the beginning of good times; in other stories, the phoenix actively fights on behalf of good and against evil.

Basically, if the phoenix is on your side, you're in good shape.

In addition to these mythological birds, other birds have been suggested as variants of the phoenix.

Although the name Firebird is very suggestive of the story of the Phoenix, I don't think the Russian legend of the firebird is actually that similar to the phoenix. You can read the story of the firebird yourself and see what you think.

The Thunderbird, who is present in many Native American stories just as there is not one Native American tribe, so there is no single Thunderbird, is also said to be similar to the phoenix. But just as there is not one single Native American tribe but several tribes with all sorts of different stories, so there is also not one Thunderbird. In just one of the stories I read, the Thunderbird seems more powerful and god-like than the phoenix, and it has more to do with influencing the weather. But again, you can read the Thunderbird stories yourself.

May your new year be like the phoenix rising from the ashes. Or, may your new year be as filled with goodness as the phoenix's song. Or, may you be empowered like the feng huang to fight the snakes of evil and nest in the woo-tung tree of happiness. Or otherwise, happy new year!

In 1832, Clement C. Moore described him in "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (now known as "The Night Before Christmas") as a jolly elf who smoked a pipe and drove a flying sleigh pulled by "eight tiny reindeer."

In 1809, Washington Irving's satire, Knickerbocker's History of New York, included several references to St. Nicholas as a jolly Dutch fellow with a clay pipe. Although he meant to make fun of a lot of things that people were doing at the time, the image of St. Nicholas as a fat, pipe-smoking Dutch tradesman is generally regarded as the product of Irving's imagination.

Colonial Germans in Pennsylvania, as well as other settlers from Europe, celebrated St. Nicholas' feast day in the colonies in the 1700s.

Many European and Russian Catholics celebrated the feast day of St. Nicholas for centuries.

The original Saint Nicholas was an actual person who was born some time around 260 AD. He was a bishop who lived in various places around Turkey and Asia Minor. Many stories are told about him and it is difficult to determine what is accurate and what is legend. Mainly, he was renowned for his generosity. He gave to those in need, and he often did so in secret, since the people to whom he gave could not have afforded to repay him in any material way.

With that, I leave you for about a week or so. I'm going to my homeland for Christmas celebrations, dog-walking, and much nap-taking.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

For today's entry, I considered the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center in New York City. But in doing a little searching around, I found an already excellent entry covering all the major facts I wanted to know about the tree: what kind is it, why does it always look so skinny, where do they get the trees, etc. For these answers and more, check out Steve Nix's guide to the Rockefeller Christmas Tree.

Also, this year, the lights aren't fluorescent bulbs but more efficient LEDs. And they're powered by 365 solar panels installed on a nearby skyscraper rooftop. When the tree is taken down after the first week of January, the wood will be used to build homes for Habitat for Humanity.

I couldn't find a photo of this year's Christmas tree, so here's a video of when it was first lit on November 28.

Anyway, since that topic has already been well-covered elsewhere, I needed to pick another subject. So I looked around and saw a mug of tea. My favorite tea right now includes several different herbs but what makes it especially tasty is the cinnamon (I prefer bags to loose tea, by the way).

Cinnamon is originally from Sri Lanka, or what used to be called Ceylon.

The oldest known written reference to cinnamon is from -- you guessed it, regular readers -- China.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, cinnamon was so highly prized, European countries fought over ownership of Sri Lanka, just so they could export cinnamon.

By the early 1800s, though, people figured out they could grow cinnamon in other places such as the various islands in Indonesia and Malaysia. Once there was no longer a monopoly on cinnamon, the price dropped, and people stopped fighting over it -- for the most part.

Sri Lanka is shown in red on this map, but you can also see the other countries where most cinnamon is grown today, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and China.(Map sourced from High Quality Organics)

Cinnamon is the inner bark of a cinnamon tree (Cinnamomum zeylanicum). It's an evergreen tree that grows best in almost pure sand.

The bark is harvested during the rainy season when it's moist and pliable, then allowed to dry into its familiar curling shape.

Most of the cinnamon sold in the United States actually comes from a different tree, called Cassia (Cinnamomum cassia). This tree is native to China, and it, too, is an evergreen, but its bark is coarser and darker, and its flavor is more pungent and less sweet.

Cinnamon is one of the essential ingredients of the increasingly well-known Chinese five-powder spice.

Several Indian dishes that call for cinnamon actually use an entire roll of bark, or quill. The quill is put into hot oil and cooked until it uncurls, this releasing its fragrance and flavor. Then other ingredients are added to the dish. The cinnamon bark is typically removed, or else it is retained but only as a garnish.

If you have powdered cinnamon, though, use it quickly or else store it in the refrigerator. Once cinnamon is powdered, it loses lots of its essential oils and thus much of its flavor, and it deteriorates pretty quickly.

If you think you might be keeping it for a while, cinnamon sticks will actually stay preserved longer if you store them in an airtight container, and grind only what you need when you're about to use it.

In a jar is possibly the best way to store cinnamon for greatest longevity -- provided that cork makes a tight seal. And if you put the jar in the refrigerator, that would help, too.(Image from SoftDental)

If you're not sure whether your cinnamon is still fresh, open the jar and take a good sniff or two. If it still smells sweet, it's good. If the sweetness is faint or not there at all, the spice won't do much for your food, either.

Two teaspoons of ground cinnamon* will give you more than 35% of your daily requirement of manganese.

You've got to have manganese to stay healthy, but you only need a little bit of it. Besides cinnamon, sources for manganese include whole grains, spinach, soy beans, nuts, olive oil, oysters, and tea.

There's another reason to make sure you don't go overboard with the cinnamon -- or in this case, I should say, cassia. Cassia cinnamon contains a compound called coumarin which can be toxic in high doses. Ceylon cinnamon has much lower levels of coumarin.

Cinnamon also contains a chemical called cinnamaldehyde. Sounds like formaldehyde, doesn't it? That's because they're chemically similar -- and similarly bad for you. A little dusting of cinnamon on your French toast won't hurt you. But a bunch of it at once will. (See below.)

Some people say cinnamon can aid in alleviating high blood pressure and that it can also reduce blood sugar, so it is considered to be helpful to people with diabetes. But please note that if you are going to use cinnamon as an herbal remedy, you'll be safer if you use the Ceylon cinnamon -- if you can find it.

*EDIT: You don't really want to eat a whole bunch of cinnamon at once because it can be toxic. There's currently a fad called the Cinnamon Challenge which dares people to eat a tablespoon of cinnamon in 60 seconds without drinking water. Mostly it's teen-agers who've tried it, but then, so has the governor of Illinois.

Here's why you DO NOT want to do this: people who have done this wind up calling poison control centers or else being rushed to emergency rooms because of the toxicity of so much cinnamon. Some people have even shown up with collapsed lungs.

First, you get a terrible burning feeling in your nose and throat, you can't breathe. Because your body knows better than you that that much of the stuff is toxic, you will gag. You will next either spit the stuff out, or if you persist in swallowing it, you'll probably vomit (if you're lucky). When you gag, you'll puff out a bunch of the powdered spice which you then may inhale by accident. Once the cinnamon is in your lungs, its toxicity will go to work there, and you could wind up with an asthma attack or even scars on your lungs. Scarring of the lungs is emphysema, folks. Same as what you get from smoking cigarettes over a long period of time. Your lungs may even collapse. Thus you could find yourself in the hospital with a collapsed lung, needing to be put on a ventilator.

Your body knows this is bad stuff. Be at least as smart as your body and don't force it to do something it knows is a really bad idea.

If someone has swallowed a spoonful of cinnamon, call the Poison Control Center at 1-800-222-1222.

In fact, the first known use of the word "anniversary" in English was in a religious sense. The word first appeared in print around 1230 A.D. in a devotional book for nuns. It wasn't until 1673 that the phrase "wedding anniversary" appeared in English usage.

"I once wanted to be an atheist, but I gave up -- they have no holidays."--Henny Youngman

A birthday is a kind of anniversary. The Spanish way of wishing someone "happy birthday" makes this pretty plain: felix compleanos literally means "happy completion of another year."

"He that outlives this day, and comes safe homeWill stand a tip-toe when the day is named"--Henry V, Shakespeare

Our Independence Day here in the United States is another kind of anniversary. Each year, we celebrate the passage of another year since our country declared its independence from England and we mark the fact that our country is another year older.

Veterans' Day, sometimes also called Armistice Day, commemorates the end of World War I. The war officially ended in June of 1919, but on November 11, 1918, the Allied nations and Germany agreed to a temporary cease-fire, or armistice. So Veterans Day is celebrated each year on November 11.

"At the going down of the sun and in the morningWe will remember them."--"For the Fallen," by Laurence Binyon

For some people, anniversaries can be really difficult. If someone you love has died, anniversaries seem to pop up all over the place, and they can trigger feelings of sadness all over again. Such difficult days can include the anniversary of the person's death day, their birthday, Christmas or other holidays that had particular meaning, or if it was a romantic relationship, days that were especially important to the two of you such as the day you first met.

"The holiest of all holidays are thoseKept by ourselves in silence and apart;The secret anniversaries of the heart."--"Holidays" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

If this is true for you, allow yourself the time to feel whatever it is you're feeling. Just because a certain amount of time has passed, that doesn't mean you're supposed to be "over it." Sad things happen. It's okay to be sad.

Some things you can do on difficult anniversaries include:

Make sure you're with friends or family members

List the good things you remember about the person you lost

Write the person a letter telling him or her all the things you meant to say

Start a new tradition in honor of the person, such as making a journey someplace meaningful, or establishing a charitable fund in your loved one's memory

If it's a loss you share with others, such as a loss of your loved one to war, attending a group ceremony or memorial can bring you together with others at a difficult time.

Whether you're having a bad anniversary or a good one, know that there will be more good anniversaries to come. More birthdays, more peace agreements, more feast days, more life.

Monday, December 10, 2007

I recently ran across this expression, to quit something cold turkey. Usually people use this phrase in reference to quitting cigarettes or alcohol or some other kind of drug, and they mean that you stop using it suddenly, all at once.

But all of a sudden, the phrase seemed strange to me. Why turkey? And why is the turkey cold? And what do turkeys have to do with quitting anything?

"Cold turkey" does not mean, literally, a chilly turkey.(Painting by Ron Parvu, Cold Turkey, 1998, on view at the Saginaw Art Museum)

There are lots of ideas about the origins of this phrase.

One page says that when you quit some sort of drug immediately, you get the cold sweats, which gives you goose bumps, and that's where the phrase comes from. But that slang dictionary is not very reputable, and I suspect that Ted Duckworth, who wrote it, didn't do all his research -- at least, not on this phrase.

Wikipedia's entry (and multiple sites that link back to it or simply copy it verbatim) say that "cold turkey" is a variation on the phrase "talk turkey," which means that you speak without lying or indirection of any kind. When you go cold turkey, then, you're no longer messing around with those drugs that set you wandering off course. And when you do that, you go through withdrawal, so you get the cold sweats and goose bumps as in plucked turkey flesh.

As one person noted at the Word Reference forum, that connection between the appearance of goose bumps and the appearance of a plucked turkey's flesh seems much too serendipitous to be believed.

And actually, my copy of the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) says that to "talk turkey" means to say lots of affable, high-flown things. Or, to spin a story that's probably got some flattery in it besides. This is just about as opposite as it gets to Wikipedia's definition of talking turkey.

Sort of what my copy of the OED looks like. Except I bought mine from the Book of the Month club back in the late 1980s for $30.(Photo from the Oxford English Dictionary)

The Online Etymology Dictionary's definition of "talking turkey" is closer to the OED's than it is to Wikipedia's. They say that that phrase probably comes from a long, extended joke told in 1824 about an Indian who got swindled. So, according to the Etymology Dictionary, talking turkey means talking hogwash. Which I think is what those other definitions of "cold turkey" are doing.

So here's what the Online Etymology Dictionary says is the definition of cold turkey: If you've served turkey but it's still cold, you haven't given it very much preparation. So doing something "cold turkey" similarly means you've done it with little preparation.

If all you've done is lay out cold slices of this, you haven't done very much.(Photo from Koch's Turkey)

Furthermore, the Etymology Dictionary says that the phrase was first used in 1910. But by 1921, the phrase was further specified to mean quitting an addictive substance -- and in that original usage, heroin.

None of those other sources offer an initial use of the phrase. And the Online Etymology Dictionary is written and compiled by Douglas Harper, a much-published historian who does his work and then some when it comes to historical topics he cares about, as opposed to other definitions that have been written by just anybody whose credentials are unknown. So I'm putting my money on his definition.

I wish, though, that somebody could tell me why turkey as opposed to, oh, chicken or beef or sausage. But I suppose it's the same reason why people picked mutton when they made up the phrase, "she's a regular cold shoulder of mutton." Just because.

By the way, in addition to this entry, I also updated my entry (Apple #5!) on Handel's Messiah with more information on that score. (Pun-of-the-day brought to you by the Apple Lady)

Friday, December 7, 2007

The building where I work is near some farmland, including a cow pasture. The other day, it had snowed a couple inches or so, and the cows were out. In the snow. I wondered what they do in the snow. Do they snuffle through the snow to find grass, or do they just wander around and eat the snow? And just in general, what do you do with cows when it snows?

Well, apparently this is a subject of some debate among cattle farmers. Some farmers say that cows get too thin and sick if you leave them outside during the winter (this is called "outwintering"). They say if it gets icy, the cows can slip and fall and maybe break a leg. These farmers also say that high winds and rain make the animals the sickest in winter. Of particular concern is the likelihood that milk cows can get frostbitten teats. Yikes!

Other farmers say the cows prefer to be outside, and as long as it's not too icy, and if you give them windbreaks -- high walls or something tall like bales lashed together where they can stand to shield themselves against the wind -- they'll be all right. Farmers who outwinter their cows generally do so because they believe their cows stay healthier if they can keep grazing all year round.

These cows live in the UK, where people have made limestone walls like this one all over the place. These walls act as excellent windbreaks for the cows.
(Photo from the Peak District National Park, Derbyshire, England)

Some farmers also say it's far less expensive to keep the cows outside because, even though it requires some more work on your part, you don't have to spend as much money keeping the buildings warm. Also, you don't have to pick up the forage, bag it, bring it inside, and feed it to the cows. You'd still have to bale the hay, but you can leave it out in the field or in feeders and let the cows go get it.

New hay bales left out in the snow for cows to graze from, with spaces between to provide shelter for the cows.(Photo from Big Oak Ridge)

Apparently, cows need two basic types of food:

Something for roughage, like hay or stockpiled grass or even kale. Some farmers let the cows graze and get all the roughage they need that way, but most say you have to supplement the grazing at least somewhat.

Grain, which in the winter usually means some sort of corn or corn waste, but it could also mean cotton seed or, in the case of one farm, pizza crust!

Another way to make sure your cows get enough to eat is by "swath grazing," which involves laying down stretches of forage in the late fall and allowing the animals to graze for it through the snow during winter, as these Canadian cattle are doing.
(Photo by Duane McCartney, from the FAO's Grasslands of the World, Chapter 12)

If you're going to outwinter your cows, you have to feed them more than you would if you kept them in the warm barn. This is because the cows need more energy to keep warm while they're outside, and they're going to move around more and get more exercise. So you have to feed them about 15% to 20% more than you would otherwise. Since cows eat about 90 pounds of food a day per cow, that's an additional 13 to 18 pounds of food per day.

Farmers also disagree on the best way to water the cows in the winter. Eating snow to get water is not an instinctive behavior for cows, but after about three days, they figure it out and will eat the snow.

Some farmers they'll eat the snow and do fine, as long as you make sure to turn them out into areas where the snow is fresh and clean. One Canadian farmer says, "Canadians . . . said that their cows do better eating snow than drinking large amounts of cold water."

Others say it's hard to make sure the cows are in clean snow, and they won't eat snow if it's crusted over, so you need to provide the cows with water tanks -- heated, if you can afford it, or otherwise you go out there yourself and crack the ice off of it for the cows.

All cows will grow longer hair as winter approaches. If you put them outside, their hair will grow longer still, around six to eight inches long depending on the type of cow and your location. Some people have coats or sacking drapes made for their cows. They say the cows wearing the coats will stay outside in even the worst weather and continue to graze and feed.

Cows that are ready to give birth (calve) are kept inside. Smaller cows may also be kept inside and fed until they reach a healthy enough weight to be outside. Less hardy animals can be, um, sent elsewhere.

But most farmers say that, if you give the cows high-quality hay, keep a close eye on their health, and ensure that the food and water supply are adequate, most cows will actually be healthier by virtue of having stayed outside and walked around and eaten in the snow.

Cows in Missouri, grazing through snow in February. Agricultural researchers grew annual feed rather than hay and let the cows graze on that. They saved lots of money, and the cows did very well on the annual feed besides.
(Photo from the Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station)

The answers to all these questions are interlinked in the global history of ketchup.

Ketchup is actually the descendant of a condiment first made in China (as I have found again and again in my Daily Apple quests, just about everything in the world today came from China). But in its original form, it included no tomatoes, and was closer to Worcestershire sauce.

In fact, ketchup's ancestor was a pickled fish sauce, called ketsiap. This word, too, has various spellings, including kôe-chiap and ka-chiap, among others. It was thinner and more liquid than what we know as ketchup today, and its primary ingredient was pickled fish brine. People loved that fish brine, and they used it as a dipping sauce.

As sailors and other traders traveled about, they brought the sauce with them from China to Indonesia and Malaysia. From there, it made the journey to England and France, where it underwent some modifications, mainly the addition of lots of mushrooms. By the 1700s, various ketchup recipes included ingredients such as:

anchovies

fish brine

oysters

walnuts

mushrooms

kidney beans

lemons

white wine

vinegar

sweet spices like nutmeg and cloves.

Frontispiece of Elizabeth Smith's The Compleat Housewife, first published in 1742 (this image is from the 1850 version). It was published in England but sold in the US. It includes a recipe for mushroom ketchup, and is considered to be the record of the first known ketchup made in the United States.(Image from University of Pennsylvania Library)

People started adding tomatoes to their ketchup in the 1780s. Then, in 1872, Henry J. Heinz came up with his recipe that used tomatoes plus the primary ingredient in all his multitudinous products, vinegar. He also added salt, sugar, onion, and spices, and wound up with a condiment that hit all the major taste sensations: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and savory (umami).

Heinz' tomato ketchup hit the stores in 1876. But his was not the only tomato ketchup for sale. All sorts of other manufacturers were making their own tomato ketchup. And they each had a slightly different spelling for their product, trying to establish theirs as unique and also the best one available.

Bottles of Heinz ketchup as they appeared in 1876.(Image from Heinz Australia)

Finally, after all the competitors edged each other out of the market, three were left standing: Heinz, Del Monte, and Hunt's. Heinz called their product Ketchup, while Del Monte and Hunt's called theirs Catsup.

So you can thank advertisers, I suppose, for the fact that two spellings for the same product are still in use today.

The spelling that seems to be the dominant choice today is ketchup. Personally, I decided I prefer that spelling because it is closest to the word for ketchup's ancestor, ke-tsiap. But another event influenced the preference in spelling.

In 1981, the US government issued a list of preferred vegetables for use in school cafeterias. They included ketchup on that list of vegetables. There was a huge outcry about this, lots of scoffing at the idea of ketchup as a vegetable, and the USDA took it off the list.

But when they put ketchup on the list, they used only one spelling, ketchup. Del Monte and Hunt's fell way behind in their sales compared to Heinz because they were selling catsup. Del Monte changed the name of their product to Ketchup, and Hunt's followed suit not long after. Both companies wanted to catch up with their competitor. Har har har!

While all this furore was going on about whether or not ketchup could be considered a vegetable and how should companies could get more of it sold to schools, the fact remained that tomatoes, from which ketchup is made, are technically fruit.

One final tidbit about ketchup: the best way to get ketchup out of the bottle is not to invert the bottle completely and whack it on the bottom. Instead, tilt the bottle part way, as you would to pour a bottle of soda, and tap it on the neck. This will help the air slide up the neck and displace the extremely viscous viscous liquid that is ketchup, so that it will want to slide out of the bottle. If you've got a glass bottle of Heinz ketchup, try tapping on the number 57 on the neck. That should do the trick.

This billboard demonstrates the best angle for pouring ketchup.(Image sourced from Heck Of A Guy's blog, which provides extensive detail on all the elements of decanting ketchup)

But actually, most ketchups are now sold in squeeze bottles, so that's not much of an issue anymore.

Monday, November 26, 2007

So while I was home for Thanksgiving, I watched a lot of football with my dad. Professional, college, and high school. And they were each good games, actually.

At one point during the football-fest, my dad and I started talking about the Heisman Trophy. That must have been during the Missouri-Kansas game because the Missouri quarterback, Chase Daniel, is considered a top contender for the trophy this year.

Anyway, my dad said that usually offensive players win the Heisman because they get more air time. He said any football player could win, and that a few defensive players have won, but it usually goes to someone on offense.

I filed away that little remark as a possible Daily Apple topic. Now here we are with my question: have any defensive players won the Heisman?

Answer: yes. A few.

Oh, yeah. First I suppose I should say what the Heisman trophy is.

You'll notice, by the way, that the figure in the trophy is carrying the ball, stiff-arming an invisible defender. In other words, the trophy itself depicts an offensive player. Though I suppose the figure could have just recovered a fumble or caught an interception . . .(Photo from Heisman Trophy)

The Heisman is a much-coveted award given to the best college football player in each given year. The trophy has been awarded since the 1930s, so it has a lot of history and because only one person wins it, it has a lot of prestige. The winner is decided by secret ballot, and the votes are cast by sports journalists and media people from all around the country, as well as by previous Heisman trophy winners. Additionally, recent voting rules have allowed one fan to cast a ballot. I don't know how they decide who that fan will be.

Each voter chooses his or her top three candidates in order of preference, with the first choice getting the most points and the third choice getting the least. Currently, about 950 people vote on the Heisman trophy-winner.

Played as cornerback, whose primary job is to cover the quarterback and try to prevent passes

The season he won -- his junior year -- he had 8 interceptions.

He also played on offense as a pass receiver, and on special teams offense returning punts.

That year, he blew away Peyton Manning, Randy Moss, and Ricky Williams in the number of votes he received for the Heisman.

Started as a true freshman and was a two-time All-American.

He went on to play for the Oakland Raiders the following year, and was named the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year.

And that's it. Everybody else is either a running back, quarterback, full back, or wide receiver. But mostly it's running backs who've won.

While the list of Heisman Trophy winners is like a mini-hall of fame list, here are some especially notable winners:

Paul Hornung, Notre Dame, 1956

Quarterback

NFL Green Bay Packers (halfback)

MVP in 1960 and 1961

Known also for his abilities to run, pass, block, and tackle. He was also a placekicker.

Vince Lombardi: "the most versatile man who ever played the game"

Roger Staubach, Navy, 1963

Quarterback

NFL Dallas Cowboys

1st year in the NFL he was 27

MVP of Super Bowl VI

Voted into the Pro Hall of Fame the first year he became eligible

Archie Griffin, Ohio State, 1974 & 1975

Running back

31 games with 100+ yards his senior year

Only player ever to win the Heisman twice

Woody Hayes: "the greatest football player I've ever coached"

NFL Cincinnati Bengals

Tony Dorsett, Pittsburgh, 1976

Running back

Still holds numerous NCAA records including most seasons with 1,000 yards, most yards, most yards rushing, and several others

NFL Dallas Cowboys

Named Rookie of the Year in 1977 and played in the Super Bowl as a rookie

Barry Sanders, Oklahoma State, 1988

Running back

Averaged 200 yards per game his junior year, the year he won the Heisman

NFL Detroit Lions

Sanders won Rookie of the Year with the Dallas Cowboys

Despite the Lions' abysmal performance, Sanders continued to rack up enormous statistics and to win several accolades for his abilities

And of course, this list would not be complete without:

O.J. Simpson, U of Southern California, 1968

Tailback

Broke several NCAA records in both 1967 and 1968

Won the trophy in the biggest voting landslide in the Heisman's history

NFL Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers

First running back to pass the 2,000-yard per season mark

Sold his Heisman Trophy in 1999 for $230,000 to pay part of the verdict against him in the wrongful death suit won by the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Enough of him. How about this instead:

Keep your eye on #2. One interception after another, TD receptions, even a pass of his own.If you don't want to watch the whole thing (the sound is annoying), check out Woodson's leaping interception at about 3:50.

Monday, November 19, 2007

We don't have snow here yet where I live, but it's coming. And I'm curious: what are the different kinds or types of snow?

The short answer to this is, it depends who you ask.

According to one early-reader guide to snow and the Inupiaq language (what we generally mean when we say "Eskimo"), you can talk about snow in terms of

how packed-down its gotten

whether it's good to use for building things

if it's already been made into something

if it's still falling or if it's on the ground

whether or not it has been moved by wind or something else.

But another crucial way for the Inupiaqs to describe snow is in terms of how good it is to turn into drinking water. I'm not going to get the diacritic marks right at all, but here are those terms in general:

nutagaq -- freshly fallen, light snow, easy to blow away

silliq -- next layer down in a snowdrift, packed more tightly

pukak -- at the very bottom of a snowdrift, just above the ground, grainy snow that feels like pebbles or salt. This is the best kind of snow to melt into water because the compression has worn the points off the snowflakes. This allows the flakes to be packed closer together, which means there's less air between the flakes. It's also the easiest to scoop into a container. When you melt pukak, you'll get the most water from it.

Wet granular -- Very wet snow, usually occurring in the spring, easy to form into snowballs.

Slush -- When the air temperature rises above freezing, snow crystals change to larger pieces of ice. Heavier and wetter than snow.

Corn snow forms when the snow melts just enough to create kernels of snow surrounded by slick patches of melted snow-water. This kind of snow will support your weight if it's still cold enough, but if the day gets any warmer, the water between the kernels will increase and your feet will sink through to slushy snow beneath.(Diagram from Avalanche.org)

Ice -- Most heavy-snow areas will never entirely turn to ice. But the top layers can melt and freeze several times until they become ice -- solid, hard, and slick.

Meteorologists will tell you about these categories of falling snow:

Snow -- ice crystals that have ganged together to form flakes at temperatures below freezing.

Snow falling in Cleveland during a snow storm in December 2007(Photo by Chris Bennis, sourced from WYKC in Cleveland)

Snow pellets -- As ice crystals or snow flakes fall, supercooled water gathers on the crystals. This can happen as a snowflake melts about halfway and then re-freezes. THey have small air pockets locked within them. Pellets will break apart or be crushed when pressed.

Sleet or Ice pellets -- Similar to snow pellets in appearance, but these are frozen raindrops that do not have air pockets. Usually this starts as snow way up in the atmosphere but melts on the way down to the earth and then passes into a subfreezing layer where it freezes again and turns into ice.

Snow grains -- Very small grains of ice, solid version of a drizzle, little accumulation.

Ice crystals -- Crystals of ice that are so small, they float in the wind.

Hail -- Falling, dense ice at least 5 mm in diameter. Forms first as ice crystals and supercooled water attaches to it and freezes there.

Because hail forms as ice with water that freezes onto it, it often takes on a layered or clumpy shape, as in this piece of hail measuring in at an astonishing 6 inches in diameter -- that's about the size of a grapefruit.(NOAA photo posted at tornadochaser.net)

Freezing rain -- Liquid precipitation that turns to ice after it hits the ground.

If you talk to a chemist or a physicist, they'll probably classify snow according to the individual flakes or crystals. And there are all kinds of ways in which the crystals have been categorized.

In 1951, the International Commission on Snow and Ice produced a simpler system of grouping the flakes into 7 general categories.

plates

stellars

columns

needles

spatial dendrites

capped columns

irregular crystals

Process by which a snow crystal grows. Depending on which classification system you use, the different steps of the process might fall into a different category of crystal.(Image from Mystery in the Air by Pete Dunkelberg)

Another snow researcher thought the 7 categories were way too simplistic, so he devised his own system using 35 types of snowflakes.

Still other snow researchers have devised their other systems using as many as 80 categories. Then the International Commission on Snow and Ice met again and revamped their whole system. They said that each snowfall will differ in terms of the snow's

density

grain shape

grain size

liquid water content

impurities

strength

hardness

snow temperature

and the snowfall in general will also have its own characteristics of

thickness (amount of snowfall)

surface roughness

load-bearing capacity

water equivalent

aspect (slope)

If I remember my math right, that's 13! or 6,227,020,800 possible different kinds of snowfall.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Just now while roaming various websites, I came across a mention of baby oil. I thought of what I usually tell people about how baby oil is made -- put a bunch of babies into a big vat and squeeze 'em and what drips out is baby oil. People always look at me with a mixture of distaste and doubt -- could that be true? No, it can't be true. Can it?

Baby oil. Made from baby squeezin's? Or something else?(Photo from Johnson's)

I mean it as a joke, of course. But because the phrase is so ineptly worded, that is what it suggests.

Baby oil is also known as mineral oil. But, okay, so what is mineral oil? I had always thought it was derived from some ground-up minerals. After doing only a very little bit of searching, I found out that's not right, either.

Is this what you're rubbing into your skin to make it nice and soft? Or is this just a scare tactic?(Image from Answers.com)

People rub mineral oil on their babies, on their faces, on their legs. People take it as an enema (because its natural effect on your body is to give you diarrhea, it's great for loosening up the bowels) -- or even drink it.

But if mineral oil comes from petroleum, does that mean it's a scary and secretly toxic thing?

The important thing to know about mineral oil is that there are two different grades of it. They vary based on the type of oil gunk the refining process starts with.

Industrial-grade mineral oil is used by chemical companies, places that have particle accelerator labs, and in general, people who do really involved chemical experiments. This type of mineral oil starts with a naphthene base, which is basically crude oil and has no paraffin wax in it.

Food-grade mineral oil comes from paraffin, which is a byproduct of the oil distillation process. So it's a refinement of a refinement.

Paraffin wax. It's a by-product of crude petroleum refining process, yes. It's also the mother of Vaseline and mineral oil. Both Vaseline and mineral oil are also known as petrolatum.(Photo from Ehsan Chemi Esteban Co.)

This is fairly commonly used in the food industry as a lubricant. It's in sprays used to clean cutting boards, or in lubricants used to grease food processing machinery, or it's used to coat packaging so it won't stick to the food. This grade is also what's in enemas, in nasal sprays, and other lubricating-type medical products. And this grade of mineral oil is also used in pesticides for the way it clogs up the breathing of various little mites that attack honey bees.

Mineral oil is recommended as a cleaner for butcher blocks or wooden cutting boards. Vegetable oils are not recommended for this purpose because they will turn rancid.(Photo from WoodZone.com)

By the way, the World Health Organization studied the effects of ingesting mineral oil, and they found that though the body does absorb some of it, because of its tendency to produce diarrhea, not that much gets absorbed. They found that the amount that does stay in your system is not enough to cause cancer.

I've run across lots of beauty & cosmetics-related sites that talk about "cosmetics-grade mineral oil." There's no such thing. The chemical companies that process mineral oil either make it for industrial purposes or to food-grade specifications. That's it.

There also seem to be rumors circulating that mineral oil causes cancer, and that you should avoid all cosmetics products that contain mineral oil.

At very high concentrations -- like, if you worked in a mineral oil processing facility and you wore no gloves -- mineral oil might give you cancer. But at the level of absorption that would occur with the occasional use of mineral oil in cosmetics, that's not going to happen.

In fact, people who already have cancer, are getting radiation, and are often bound up gastric-wise as a result are frequently advised by their doctors to take enemas that contain mineral oil, or even to drink products that contain mineral oil as a way to loosen up the works. Even the various cancer societies around the country suggest mineral oil to people who are fighting against cancer.

Contains mineral oil. Recommended to people struggling with some of the side-effects of cancer-killing radiation.(Image from Phosphoda.com)

Ingested mineral oil can block the absorption of essential vitamins, however. So if you do drink it for its cleansing properties, it's a good idea to take a multivitamin afterwards, and to use it sparingly.

You also want to make sure you don't drink too much of it at once -- though that's difficult because it will give you diarrhea in a hurry. If you think you've ingested too much mineral oil, drink a lot of water. That will work better than making yourself throw it up.

You also want to be careful about inhaling it. Again, just opening a bottle and using it as you normally would isn't going to be toxic. But if you sit there and sniff it for a long time, or if you work in a mineral oil processing plant and don't protect yourself, you could get "chemical pneumonia."

There's also been some dispute about whether or not applying mineral oil to your face will give you acne. Not very long ago, it was proven that the kind of mineral oil that's sold in the drug store will not give you acne. Since it isn't absorbed easily into the body, it will rest on your skin, and won't soak into your pores and clog up the works.

One thing to note, though, is that some "baby oils" do contain a lot of perfume or fragrance. And those perfumes could clog your pores or irritate your skin.

Anyone selling cosmetics who says their products are better because they don't contain mineral oil are trying to scare you into buying something more expensive.

Shaving cream is one of about 95,000 things in the drugstore that contain mineral oil. Cost? $3.99.(Image from drugstore.com)

So while the parentage, so to speak, of mineral oil is a bit scary, in practice, it's not the screaming end of mineral oil. If you hate petroleum and all things to do with petroleum, then go ahead and choose products with other ingredients. But know that you'll pay bigger bucks for that choice.

P.S. I'll admit that after having done this entry, I checked the labels on my various bottles of hand lotion. They all have mineral oil in them -- or petrolatum, which is another word for the same thing. I'll admit it didn't exactly give me comfort.

But then, not only did I find it in so many products, those are all products I have been using for years and that have not given me rashes, break-outs, scary lumps, or chicken heads growing out of my flesh or anything like that. So I decided all over again that while the presence of mineral oil in all my lotions doesn't fill me with contentment, I'm not going to throw them all away or go out and buy everything all-natural at six times the price. I'm going to live with it. Same as I've always done, just without knowing it.

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